


Displaced Fascination

by angel1876



Category: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (Short Film)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 21:58:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel1876/pseuds/angel1876
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new person comes to live with the three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Displaced Fascination

If it had been up to Manny, there wouldn't have ever been another person living at their house. The three of them stayed there only because they literally had nowhere else to go, it was stay there or go out to live on the streets, and even then that option might have been better than the hell they faced everyday. 

If it had been up to Manny, he would have said that they'd simply no room for another person. There were three people living there already(five, if you counted those monsters as people) and they couldn't accept someone else, even if they did have enough money to pay rent for the few months it was going to take her to settle in so she could start looking for a job.

If it had been up to Manny, he would have told the girl to run for the hills before she could even take a step inside.

But it wasn't up to him, so he only threaded his fingers through his red hair and kept his mouth shut, leading the woman up to the guest room upstairs, the one that was to be her living quarters for the next few months, and probably longer if she could get herself that job she'd been talking about. She put her clothes in the corner and started to put them away, and Manny cringed at the sight of a bright green outfit.

He could only hope that she'd push it in the back and forget it was there.. for her sake.

The first meeting went surprisingly well. The woman joined the three of them at the table. The three, Manny, Yellow and Robin were almost always together. Even if it didn't make any of them safer, there was the illusion it did.. and when everything did fall into chaos, as it always did, at least they weren't alone. They talked, mostly about safe things, the weather, their favorite shows. The woman mentioned that she'd been into science fiction, one upon a time. Her father never approved, so she had to sneak the movies past him, watch them in the dark alone.

The door opened, and in walked Paige. She seemed to be in a good mood, though it was always a gamble with her. At least with Tony you could usually tell when he was about to hunt you down. Paige grinned, put a hand on her shoulder, and introduced herself. The woman glanced down at the hand as it drained ink into her otherwise pure white shirt, but thankfully she made no comment. Maybe she was timid, or maybe she reasoned that this wasn't her house, or maybe it was an old shirt that she didn't care about.

"Nice to meet you, Paige," she said with a smile, "I'm-"

"What's your favorite idea?"

"Um.." she thought about it for a moment, "Curing disease. Ending hunger. Furthering mankind in general."

"Oh." she giggled, pulling away to lean against the back of Robins chair. The green haired man cringed, tried to make himself look small. He always got the worst of it, at least from her. "Mine is being creative."

"That's rather vague. Can you give me an example?"

They spoke of drawing, of paints, sculptures... eventually Paige grew bored and skipped off, the three letting out a sigh of relief as the woman prodded the now clean part of her shirt with an air of confusion. "Where did the ink go?" she asked.

None of them answered, and she didn't press the subject.

It wouldn't last, Manny knew. And indeed, two days later, the woman came out in the green outfit that he wished she'd have just thrown out. Paige was in the corner, drawing, and the three of them were at the table again for breakfast. Before the woman could even make it halfway to her chair Paige confronted her, frowning in distaste.

"What..?"

"Green is not a creative color. Go put something else on."

For a moment, Manny hoped she wouldn't argue. She'd just do as she was told, and all would be well.

She didn't.

"Why isn't green creative?" she asked.

Paige's disapproving look became a full on glare. "It just isn't. Take it off and put something else on."

Even then, it might have ended without incident.. but the woman as far too observant for her own good. "There's green in your hair."

There was a moment of quiet, the calm before the storm as the two stared at each other, the three watching on in horror. Paige's grip on her metal pen tightened, and a scream cut the air as the woman was tackled to the ground. Her response time was fairly impressive, she grabbed onto Paiges wrist and held her at bay for almost a full minute before the pen was lodged deep into her throat.

Blood went everywhere, she coughed and screamed, writhing, instinctively holding the wound once the pen had been pulled away. Her defenses down, it was simple for Paige to stab her again and again, stomach torn open, a lung pierced, until finally the blood loss and shock made her still...

Panting, Paige waved an inky black hand, and the woman coughed, violently, her body healed of all injuries. Manny could see the panic and confusion in her eyes, knew how it felt to be dead one moment and then alive again. Lucky for her, Paige was satisfied with one death, and simply held her down, pinning her to the floor so she could run a hand over her chest, hips, stomach, anyplace that was still green even after she'd been saturated in her own blood. Once the outfit was completely covered in red and black, Paige stood and went back to her drawings, like nothing happened.

The woman fled. She didn't come out of her room for almost a full day, and even then it was forced. Manny knew this, because he'd heard her being dragged through the hall in the middle of the night, protests mingling with Tonys insistence that she go with him. They'd be running late if he didn't show her whatever horrid lesson he'd had in store for her. It was probably about time. It was his favorite subject after all.

Just as expected, the screaming started, quickly becoming wet and strained as her body began to rot. Yellow whimpered, prompting Manny and Robin to press into him closer, the three holding each other and hoping that attention wouldn't be drawn to them.

She wasn't seen again until dinnertime, her head lowered as she sat, picking at her food. They were alone at the moment, the two somewhere else in the house. Everything was quiet, so they obviously weren't fighting. It was Robin who spoke, his voice a half whisper, "You can sleep in our room, if you want.."

It was an offer that Manny disagreed with. This woman was new, and libel to draw and retain Tony and Paiges attention for weeks to come. If she stayed with them at night, that meant that they were more likely to be harmed as she was thoroughly explored. Much to his relief, she shook her head, responding with an almost as quiet, "No, thank you. I'm fine."

That night was filled with noise once more, but thankfully it didn't include the three of them nor did it include the woman. Paige and Tony were having one of their fights down in the living room, and despite the constant state of fear they were all in, there was something comforting about the fact that the two were after each other instead of them. Manny heard the womans door open, and waited for the knock. Obviously, she'd changed her mind and decided to join them in the false safety of their room.

She didn't. There was the soft creek of someone going down the stairs, and all the three could do was murmur to each other in confusion and fear.

What was she doing? Why in the world would she go down there?

Silence. The sound of a female voice conversing with a males. Paige had lost this round, and now that the fight was over, Tony had time to talk to the woman who'd come down to watch the battle. They were too quiet, the walls too thick to know what was being said, just the knowledge that the womans voice was relatively calm, while Tony's was amused. Somewhere during the conversation, exhaustion overwhelmed the other two, and Manny was the only one awake to hear the woman return to her room as things down below went silent.

Peace for an amazing three days..

Then it happened.

The woman had left under the pretense of getting food, and indeed, she'd returned with several groceries. Nothing seemed out of order there, and with everyones attention upon Paige who was going on about art and drawing, none of the three of them noticed the one plastic bag that was left on the counter. Not one of them saw the way she stared at the impromptu teacher, her muscles clenching under the skin as if preparing for flight. None of them realized that she was talking herself into something, not until she came quietly up behind Paige with an open, silver can in her hands.

Only when the brightly colored paint hit Paiges head did they realize what she was doing, a cover of green pouring over the creative, staining her skin, her dress, her beloved multicolored hair. This silence was the harshest of all, the kind that felt solid, bearing down on you like an abyss.

"I love the color green." the woman said, her voice quiet, small, but holding a flare of defiance that the three never had.

No one escaped the explosion. The rush of screams, the suddenly gore covered room. They tried to escape while the woman was brutally stabbed, but the doors no longer existed, just an endless wave of chaos and pain, death and rebirth, over and over and over again. Their skin burned as if coated in acid, their eyes swelled until they burst, their lungs were collapsed and their hearts exploded in their chest. If Manny could even form a coherent thought, he'd have shuddered at what must be happening to the woman. This was the worse any of them had ever been tortured, and it just kept going, again and again until their entire world was nothing but agony, a few seconds of relief and then more agony.

When it was finally over, when it stopped and the room was normal and they were allowed to breath and think, all they could do was gather together in the farthest corner and watch, the thought of escape having long been eroded away. There was no escape, there were no doors, there was nothing but this room and her and the foolish woman who'd inspired her wrath. The offending paint had long been absorbed into her, vanishing into nothing like the dye she obsessively used on the green strip of hair. Perhaps that was what caused her to calm enough to ease the torment, Manny couldn't say. Manny couldn't say much of anything at the moment.

The woman was stabbed, skinned, bludgeoned, all the while Paige shouted over her screams of pain, "Green is not a creative color! Not. A. Creative. Color. Not! Creative!"

Somewhere, in another time, another place, Manny would look back on this horror and find a single shred of amusement, for off in the background stood a bloody, somewhat alarmed Tony, who simply stood there, quietly watching the events unfold. How he managed to get caught in the crossfires when he'd been outside a room with no doors was a mystery. However, it seemed that time wasn't as unmoving as he kept saying, because it was obvious that even the clock had been unnerved by Paiges reaction.

It was another eternity before the woman was finally hauled up and shoved into the nearest wall, pinned with her back against the surface.

"Why?" Paige demanded, stabbing her yet again, "Why? Why?!" 

The woman died, and was immeadiately revived, only to be sliced into once more before she could get a response in. Even the screaming had stopped, exhaustion both physical and mental draining her of energy. The pen slipped between her ribs, piercing a lung. The woman wasn't even fighting anymore.

Again, Paige asked, "Why?"

The woman took a long time to respond, her movements sluggish, and in another moment that Manny would look back on, only this time with amazement, she spoke. Her voice rattled, her injured lung making speech both painful and difficult, but her voice was calm.

"Did I... ever tell you..any of you.. why I needed a room?"

No answer. She continued, "When I was...little... my.. my mother.. got sick. She was dying...s-slowly... She..was a scientist...put her entire life.. into furthering science.. and helping others...but when she got sick...they wouldn't help her...she gave them her life, and they wouldn't-" she broke off into a coughing fit, fresh blood dripping from her mouth, "They had...chemicals..things that might have helped.. and she could have..could have taken some...taken some and just left...but she didn't."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Paige snapped venomously.

The woman smiled faintly, despite the pain and the fear and the trauma of what she'd just been through, "She died..when I was eight...m-my dad never...never got over it..he started drinking...didn't..care about me anymore.. no more stories.. talks before bed... no more candy or.. or 'how's your day been?'.. we weren't really...family anymore.. he died... a month ago...from alcohol poisoning... state took the house.. state took everything.. left me on the streets.."

She paused to take a deep, shuddering breath. Paige, for her part, had gone silent, at the very least hearing her out. "So I... I was thinking.. it's better to.. it's better to regret action..over inaction..if my mother...stole the chemicals... she'd be in jail at the most..and I'd still have my f-family..." her eyes glazed over, staring past Paiges gaze and into the nothingness beyond. It was clear that she was getting ready to go under again, "You...both of you...are f-fasssa-fascinating..a-and.. I'd rather..see what you can do..and be in pain....than to-...to miissss the ch-chance and... regret it..la...layyy.."

She went still, her heart stopping, and for a long moment Manny felt the terrifying suspicion that Paige wasn't going to bring her back, that she'd just let her die for the crime of a little green paint...

And then with a shudder and a gasp, the woman was breathing again, all injuries gone and both eyes focused on her assailant.

"Who are you?" 

The woman smiled, a wide and strained smile, and with a quiet, barely there voice, replied, "My name is Chell."

Paige let go, and without her support, Chell collapsed to the ground. Without another word, both Paige and Tony left, leaving the three alone with the one. 

Soon, the three left as well. The woman was just as untrustworthy as the two if she was going to be aggravating them into punishing everyone, not just herself.

The next day, she told Tony that time didn't exist, and that nothing he could ever say would change her mind.


End file.
